Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Following Monday's preview (below) of the front cover of Órfhlaith Foyle’s debut short story collection, Somewhere in Minnesota, here's a sneak preview of the expanded and enlarged paperback edition of Nuala's 2nd short fiction collection, To the World of Men, Welcome, which will be available shortly.

The artwork is by Ireland's most famous woman artist, Pauline Bewick, and is entitled "Lovers and Feathers". See www.paulinebewick.ie

Monday, August 15, 2011

Geraldine’s upcoming readings from World Without Maps, her Patrick Kavanagh award-winning poetry collection.

Wednesday 17 August, SLIGO
The reading takes place in Nazareth House, Church Hill, Sligo at 7pm to celebrate the launch of the Sligo Poets’ 2012 calendar.

Monday 5 September, CORK
Reading at Ó Bhéal, upstairs at The Long Valley, Winthrop Street, Cork, from 9pm.
Before her reading, Geraldine will be giving a “wordshop” on language and poetry, beginning at 7pm.
“Seamus Heaney has called poetry ‘language in orbit’, so let’s look at ways to get lift-off. With exercises and triggers I’ll aim to have participants take language by surprise, and hopefully surprise themselves while they’re at it”. [Cost €15 (€12 concession). For further details contact Paul on 085 712 6299 or email Ó Bhéal, www.obheal.ie.

And a free to view reading in London, on the outside wall of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. It is one of ten poems chosen as part of the 60th Anniversary Celebrations of the Festival of Britain. This poem, ‘Flotilla’, first appeared in the Derry-based journal Abridged and is representing Northern Ireland at the South Bank Centre.

Flotilla ‘Heaven Scent’ Magnolia

They tack in, full rig, under cover of darkness,
dock before dawn in cement-paved ports

at wharves of picket fence. The voyage
has been long through winter’s bald estates,

gusting grit and dust have shred their sails
to votive rags, bound now to every leafless branch.